Perfect

Pretty good

It stunk

Horrible

I was wondering how can you tell if a bass sounds good or bad? To me every bass sounds good to me . The only resona bass would sound bad is if it's out of tune. I know that some basses sound different but how can you tell???

i would mail you my ears but your best bet is to use your own. they will tell you if a bass is bad or good.

when buying a new bass it is good to deal with a shop that will let you return it. your ears might think it sounds good throu an expensive amp but if you play threw one they don't have in the store i will sound diferent.

also don't listen to the this bass is great this bass stinks stuff again it is up to you.

My first bass (a $150 bass that I only rented, never bought) was POS slob o' basswood with really sucky PJ pups, and the strings were dead (at least they always sounded that way). Now, I was 13 only years old, I didn't know any better, and it actually did the job pretty darn well. I thought the metalflake blue paint was kinda cool, too.

my first bass was a black '91 Korean Squier Precision I got in '92. (I think the quality of squier basses hit an all-time low around this time)

it looked great, and i loved it, but I gradually discovered just how bad it really was- dull, lifeless tone, and I wondered for ages why I couldn't get a decent slap tone out of it- was it my technique, the strings...etc.....
when I got my second bass, a Fender P bass plus, it was like a whole new world.....

the squier met its demise a couple of years ago after I tried out a new squier precision (excellent in comparison )
furious at all the frustration my first bass had caused me over the years, I went home and smashed it on the floor. I've still got the pieces.

When I first had my '94 MIM Squier Precision, it sounded good, cos I didn't know any better If I were to play it today, I would probably not like it at all cos my ears have gradually gotten more and more picky about tone. The lesson in this is that if you think it sounds fine, then run with it until you don't think so anymore. Otherwise you're just wasting your money...

My first bass was a Kawai of indeterminate vintage... definitely not the good stuff that Kawai is making these days. It had a plywood body made from about a billion laminates, a 1/4" thick dark sunburst finish, pickup switches that looked similar to those on a Fender Jaguar, and a body that was vaguely SG shaped, a fairly hip tortoise-shell pickguard... Two incredibly funky pickups... This was all in late '79 or early '80...

To my ears, it sounded pretty good and sat well in the mix of my first band. Sadly, it was stolen while we were packing up after our first gig, (the first of four that have been stolen over the years...), and I have missed it many times since.

Originally posted by LimpyBizkit397 I was wondering how can you tell if a bass sounds good or bad? To me every bass sounds good to me . The only resona bass would sound bad is if it's out of tune. I know that some basses sound different but how can you tell???

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Well in the end, it's the whole package that sounds good or bad and that includes things like how you play and the situation, as well as your bass - how in tune is it, your amp sound etc. etc.

So some people can make a "bad" bass sound good by their experience and technique - or at least they could make it sound better than most other people.

Now you mention about being "out of tune" - well some basses I played when starting out, were almost impossible to play in tune - especially above the 12th fret.

Things like high action, bad setup and in the end the construction of the bass can all work against you and make it very difficult to get a good sound.

On the other hand - a lot of these things can be changed - as people have mentioned. So a bass may sound "lifeless" but may only need a new set of strings. Or it may be very hard to play - but you might be able to adjust the action. Of course - you might not be able to - and also the cost of the modifications necessary, might be more than getting another bass!

Anyway - what I'm really saying is that it isn't that straightforward or "black and white" - there are lots of things to consider and one person's "bad"- sounding bass, might be ideal for another person's situation.

Generally speaking - life just isn't like that - good/bad, much as we'd like it to be - there are always infinite gradations in between and potentially infinite considerations - and basses are no different!

Very good - although I didn't realise it at the time. The slim neck made it easy to learn on. The maple fingerboard / maple neck and single p pup gave it a nice bright tone, but ultimately limited what I could do with it. Thats why its now got an ebony fretless fingerboard and a j bridge pup.

Just sorted the intonation on it and it still sounds sweet. 17 years after I got it.

LOL - I've just realised that I've been playing bass for over half of my life !

i put perfect, because, for me it is the greatest bass i've ever had. well, i guess its the only bass i've ever had, but, i played on my friends bass and i think mine sounds way better(might just be cuz my amp is 3 times bigger than his...). I dont even know what model my bass is, i just know its a shortneck, with 20 frets, 4strings, and made by Epiphone. But i think it sounds wicked with the mid cranked way up.

It's hard to tell, because I had such a cheap amp. My first bass was a brazilian made instrument, so I assume the woods must have been pretty good. It was a Jazz bass copy with dual humbuckers and exposed polepieces. It also has a scaller-style roller bridge, except it had no rollers. When I got my first decent bass (an Ibanez Roadstar) I found that the Jazz copy had a higher output. The sound, well, wasn't great, but I was playing through a guitar amp of th "Ciclotron" brand. My sound could have been described as Geddy Lee meets Sting, although I wasn't as adroit as either (Obviously),

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my first bass was a black '91 Korean Squier Precision I got in '92. (I think the quality of squier basses hit an all-time low around this time)

it looked great, and i loved it, but I gradually discovered just how bad it really was- dull, lifeless tone, and I wondered for ages why I couldn't get a decent slap tone out of it- was it my technique, the strings...etc.....
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do all Squier Precision basses have a crappy slap sound?
cos mine sounds horrible when i try and i have a decent amp, maybe its my technique